


Silentia Voce

by cardinalrachelieu



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: D:, Gen, It's not what you think, and yet here we are anyway, i hate /myself/ for doing this, if it's any consolation, it's worse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 02:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9798263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardinalrachelieu/pseuds/cardinalrachelieu
Summary: It’s moments like this, with his shadows vibrating in tune with the whispers between realms, when he wonders if his gift is a blessing or a curse.“I’m not ready,”the damned always say, hopeful and so very, very tired—like a small child wanting to stay awake even as their sleep-heavy eyes continue to flutter shut. And this time is no exception. He hears the prayer, just as he always does, and closes his eyes to keep the tears at bay.With effort, he normally smothers this part of himself—the part that hears the pleas of dying souls; but this time…thistime, because he cannot bear to let go a moment sooner than he must, he continues to listen. And it is this time that Azriel finally hears a response.“Yes,”the heavens encourage, gentle and sure as the moonrise over Velaris each night."You are."Through the raging turmoil of his mind, he wonders if he’s hearing the Mother’s voice. The way the words seem to glow, he thinks they could’ve come from none other.“Return to me.”A breath on the wind. A promise of rest. An ending. And, in a way, a beginning.





	

Death is quiet, Azriel remembers, cloaked in shadow so thick that he can barely see through the haze. He’d forgotten the silence that settled into his bones whenever a death was near; had blocked it out for centuries now.

But this time… _this_ time he chooses to feel everything anew.

When he was younger, and he was made to kill for others, all he could hear was the screaming of his targets; and his shadows would scream with them—raw and brutal and broken.

Until he learned to _listen;_ to _channel._

Amidst the cacophony of shrieking souls and clashing blades, there is a stillness—a pattern to the beat of dying hearts and the shallow gasps of breath just before the end of it all; a brief moment of calm when the universe calls out to the energy within a person and that person’s very soul responds in kind.

He can sense it before it begins—the final stages of a life leaving a body. As a boy, he didn’t understand the feeling, but now… he is intimately aware of what it means.

_“It is your time.”_

It’s not a voice so much as it is an aura—a warmth that burrows into the charred, wounded core of him, inviting and pure. He recognizes it instantly; has felt it a thousand times before. Soothing and eternal and commanding.

 _No,_ he wants to cry. _Not this time._

No one else ever feels it, he realized late one night after speaking to Cassian and Rhys—the… _hum_ in the air, just before death takes hold, like a hurricane of beating wings, resonating deep in his chest. Rhys understood, though, with his ability to walk between minds, and his eyes went glassy and unfocused as he thought more about it. Azriel hadn’t dared ask his friend if he’d ever been linked with someone in the moment their soul had departed their body; he hadn’t needed to.

 _Please, not this time._ He would fight the Mother Herself if it meant he could forestall this one death. _Please._ He would trade his life for theirs in an instant—and he even goes so far as to shout his promise into the void.

_Take my life, take my wings—just please… please…_

But he knows there is no halting this cycle; not with the quickest of tongues nor the sharpest of steel.

Oh, how he has tried…

Vaguely, he hears the snap of magic and the crunching of bone, muffled by his churning, restless shadows walling him off from the fury. Briefly, the blue, protective dome of light originating from his siphon falters, and he considers just letting it crash down; letting it fail and greeting his own death with open arms.

Except it wouldn’t be just _his_ death. Without his defense—without _each_ of them doing their part, there would be seven deaths today instead of one.

Yet still… he considers it.

It’s moments like this, with his shadows vibrating in tune with the whispers between realms, when he wonders if his gift is a blessing or a curse.

 _“I’m not ready,”_ the damned always say, hopeful and so very, very tired—like a small child wanting to stay awake even as their sleep-heavy eyes continue to flutter shut. And this time is no exception. He hears the prayer, just as he always does, and closes his eyes to keep the tears at bay.

With effort, he normally smothers this part of himself—the part that hears the pleas of dying souls; but this time… _this_ time, because he cannot bear to let go a moment sooner than he must, he continues to listen. And it is this time that Azriel finally hears a response.

 _“Yes,”_ the heavens encourage, gentle and sure as the moonrise over Velaris each night.  _"You are."_

Through the raging turmoil of his mind, he wonders if he’s hearing the Mother’s voice. The way the words seem to glow, he thinks they could’ve come from none other.

 _“Return to me.”_ A breath on the wind. A promise of rest. An ending. And, in a way, a beginning.

For a split second, he's surrounded, completely, by blissful, unfiltered peace; rapture—a feeling Azriel had thought impossible in this wretched life, drenched in blood that’s not his and cradling his fallen friend against his chest.

And then... he’s gone.

Mor’s hands, shining bright gold with the thrum of magic, pressed hard against the gaping, jagged wound, go dull when she feels it; and a stray shadow warns him that she’s stopped breathing. He barely listens; can barely hear anything above the haunting quiet of this new reality.

His brother for half a millennium; his blood in all but name.

Gone.

_Gone._

He would roar were it not for the hole in his chest; were it not for the air stolen from his lungs by Cassian’s final breath; were it not for the deafening, consuming silence hammering through his veins with each _thump_ of his traitorous, still-beating heart; were it not for the piece of his rational mind telling him that the fight is not yet over—that he cannot yet grieve.

And were it not for Amren holding the hoards at bay, they all would already have been speared. Gathered on bent knees around the limp form of their companion, none of them can do a thing apart from breathe—stunned to inaction by the suddenness of it all. There was so much he still wanted to say...

 _Take me instead._ He'd shout it at the heavens, if only he could find the strength to make a sound. _Take me, take me, take me…_

It doesn't take him long to realize this prayer will go unanswered.

With a bowed head and falling tears, Azriel smooths his trembling fingertips over his brother’s eyes, closing them. He's faced hoards and flattened armies with more injuries than what he currently has, but he knows he won't be able to go on if he dares look at those eyes—Cassian’s eyes—as they are now. Not even the fires lit on Calanmai could ever compete with the flame burning within his brother's soul, and he knows that light is gone now—stolen away by the indiscriminate hand of fate.  

Between fractured breaths, he manages to whisper the familiar words of the Illyrian death rite, Rhys joining him whenever his voice does not also fail. Vision blurring, Azriel wills himself through it, numbs the pieces of his heart which threaten to shatter.

Not yet.  _Not yet._

He'll grieve later—when this is done. When they are safe.

If the Mother is still listening, he hopes She hears them; hopes She guides his brother to the eternal skies and lets him soar until the Cauldron Unmakes them all. It's the only solace he finds—and he clings to it, forms new armor from it, makes himself into the soldier they all need him to be for just a little bit longer.

He can hear it now, above the noise of battle, above the muffled sobs of his family—a screaming silence that slices him to his core.

Death is quiet, Azriel remembers, cocooned in shadows that roil and flare and writhe, torn between protecting their master and wailing at the loss of one so dear.

Death is quiet.

But Nesta, when she finds her breath and is able to make a sound through the cleaving pain of a shattered bond… _Nesta_ is not.

**Author's Note:**

> I AM SO SORRY
> 
> I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED
> 
> COME CRY WITH ME ON [TUMBLR](http://yalenayardeen.tumblr.com)


End file.
